Autocad 2d printing

by Design Workshop Sydney

Jan3

The final step in many Autocad 2d workflows is the printing stage. We talk you through the process in our Autocad 2d training courses.autocad-2d-printing
To print or Plot the drawing from Autocad’s Paper Space press the top left Application button  – this is the old pre-2009 File menu on the PC version, although it still exists in the current Macintosh version of Autocad. Choose Print and Plot. Alternatively you can simply click the Plot shortcut button at the top toolbar. The Plot dialog box will appear on the screen at this point. Here we find many options for printing the drawing.
For example, for the Printer or plotter name you may either choose your own desktop printer or one of the PDF creators. If you have Adobe software installed on your computer you’ll have the Adobe PDF option. If not, there are other PDF creators, some of which are better than others in terms of choices available. If in doubt, just use the generic DWG to PDF option.
For Paper size, choose A3, for example, and click on the Preview button. A preview window will then appear, representing how the printed drawing will look on paper. Hit the Escape key on your keyboard if you need to make any further adjustments. For example, if the viewport window is offset to one side simply punch in an X and Y value to move it across the page, for example 10mm in the X direction and 5mm in the Y direction. Hit Preview again to double-check your adjustments.
If you’re happy with the drawing simply press the Plot button on the top left of the screen. In the case of Adobe PDF, it will ask for a location in which to save the document, and will will take a few seconds to open in Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader. The latter can be downloaded for free from www.Adobe.com if you don’t already have it. The drawing will open as a PDF document. These are good file formats to send by email to clients since basically anyone with a computer can open, read and print a PDF.
The advantages of PDFs are their small file size and good resolution for printing. It’s also possible to add password security for patent drawings or legal documents. The client also doesn’t need AutoCAD in order to view them.
More information on all features of the program can be found at the AutoDesk website. And see many examples of our clients’ work on our Facebook page.
Other related Autocad 2d Blog Posts: